Greetings, Warriors!
This week, we are happy to introduce a significant change in one of the core PVP systems in the game. Sieges and battles for locations are the meat and potatoes of Gloria Victis and we all know how much fun and adrenaline they can bring. We are removing some negative aspects of certain possibilities related to Sieges in today's patch based on your feedback from an ingame questionnaire, so we hope you will be delighted to read the details of the new system below.
Additionally, we managed to continue our work on players' proxy optimization and from now on, servers' performance should be much better, especially in bigger fights. This is not the end of this task, and our programmers are constantly finding space for improvements on that matter, so you can expect further iterations of optimization changes in the following weeks.
Last but not least and as always, we are addressing some of your reports and feedback, introducing some Quality of Life improvements and fixes.
Check the details below!
The screenshot’s authors have been awarded. SHVAGIER, SODANK, Hawk, and Salty – check your Ambers!
Changelog v.0.9.9.3.5 Beta
Nation locations sieges changes
In order to improve the overall sieging experience, we are introducing a new mechanic for nation castles. We observed players' behavior regarding map movement, sieges tactics, and outcomes of performed actions. It became obvious that there are some aspects of the old system that could bring negative emotions, drag players from the actual gameplay, and be abused to bully other nations by, for example, keeping the location under constant siege status.
After asking you directly about possible solutions via ingame questionnaire, we received very positive feedback, where 79.7% of you voted "Rather Agree" or "Definitely Agree" to the question “Should capturing at least one small flag be required to begin a siege?”
This new system should make it impossible to mislead the defenders by keeping the location in a constant siege state, which was making it impossible to rebuild walls and other defenses, and in the long run, was quite overwhelming to deal with.
Our designers were searching for solutions to mentioned problems for quite some time, as it was crucial for us to deliver the least impactful and at the same time well-targeted change to limit only the actions that were causing trouble. The change aims to filter out enemies driving around the flags, with no intention of attacking, from those who actually want to attack. The entire iteration in general is designed to protect against trolls pulling the entire army out of the castle and escaping without the possibility of PvP.
From now on, to start a siege on the main location flag, it is required to capture at least one of the minor flags of this location.
Additionally, to counter lone raiders capturing the flags and running away to avoid combat, from now on, we'll dismount the horse to the stables while entering the bastion. Thus, it will be possible to protect yourself much more efficiently, and it will be easier to catch the player who is occupying the minor flag because he will have to recall his horse again to escape. Additionally, for further balance improvements, when the possibility to call the mount directly on spawn is being turned off, players who will decide to defend the flag and spawn on it, will receive a one minute buff allowing them to call out their mount outside of Bastion in 5 seconds, instead of 15 like before.
Minor flags have been added to all locations that did not have them yet. New flags for Temples and Outposts ( there are in total 9 new ones added) are purely strategic ones, they do not have any resources or vendors on them, as well do not provide access to Depot. Those flags will still have a proper amount of guards.
We believe those changes will greatly improve your gameplay, and lead to proper, engaging, and enjoyable fights for locations.
Quality of Life improvements
– Enabled preview for item sets in Supporter Shop.
– Some weapons skins were not shown in the Supporters Shop preview window. From now on you can change the state of the preview character between armed/disarmed. Preview for weapons will be shown by default in an armed state, which ensures proper visualization of them in the preview window.
– Fixed rotation of Fisherman’s Revenge two-handed hammer skin.
– Unconscious players are fully unable to interact with the world, especially to talk to Siege Engineers and spawn siege equipment in their state.
– Improved the proxy of mobs so they will not levitate just above the ground.
– Tweaks to AI mobs maneuvers while in combat. Their movement should be more fluid and give a better feeling overall.
– Added trails for throwable weapons
– Added firecrackers and festive lanterns to the list of unlootable items.
– Added notification stars to the top screen quick access menu.
– Added a new icon for the Abandoned Mines event.
– Improved rewards for the Abandoned Mines event. For completing an event you can get a reward chest, with a newly added elixir or its recipe: Gatherer's Decoction.
– Optimization of player proxy. It results in noticeable improvement of the game performance and less CPU usage, especially in bigger battles.
– New item: Bucket with Fertilizer. Use it on crops that require fertilizer to speed up their growth. Item works in the same way as Buckets of Water. It can extinguish fire too.
Fixes
– Fixed an issue with skins initialization after the spawn. After spawning to or out from Valley of Death Tournament were cases where skins were not shown properly on the client or proxy.
– Fixed all known issues related to alliance membership. This change was introduced to global servers in a hotfix on 8.04.22
– Fixed an issue with quest Weaponsmisth’s dialogue.
– Fixed an issue causing players to be able to teleport to an empty Frontier Pass event location via invitation which should be removed after the event's end.
– Fixed the issue where the siege event randomizer was allowing only three-way sieges on outposts. From now on regular attack/defense events can occur in outposts locations.
– Multiple fixes for resources positions and rotation, level design fixes across the game world.